3 Ways Illumio + Microsoft Azure Firewall Bolster Your Cloud Security Strategy

Recent research by Vanson Bourne found that 98 percent of organizations are storing their most sensitive data in the cloud. It’s impossible to deny the importance of the cloud in modern business. No matter your size, industry, or spend, the cloud is playing a vital role in ensuring the scalability and flexibility of your network.

But with this increasing pressure to scale cloud resources comes a concerning rise in cloud breach risk.

Raghu Nandakumara, Senior Director of Industry Solutions Marketing at Illumio, sat down with Gopikrishna Kannan, Head of Products at Microsoft Azure Firewall, to discuss how Illumio for Microsoft Azure Firewall, the latest tech alliance between the two security leaders, delivers the necessary tools to adopt Azure securely and efficiently at scale.  

Get a snippet of their conversation below:

Watch their full webinar here.

1. Cloud security that's flexible and scalable

The most important advantage of the cloud? Flexibility.  

“If you think of on-premises versus the cloud, the speed, the agility, and the flexibility are key right now,” Kannan noted.

And more than ever, organizations require cloud security that be can just as flexible and scalable as the cloud itself.  

“If I am a multinational organization and want to expand my footprint and reach customers in different geos, I would select Azure,” explained Kannan. “It provides the flexibility to launch in a new region. I can expand my footprint quickly and securely with the right set of tools to do so.”

With Illumio for Microsoft Azure Firewall, security teams can be confident that those environments are managed securely.

Learn more about the joint integration in this article.  

2. Zero Trust extended to the cloud

In today’s complex cybersecurity landscape, Zero Trust security principles stand out as best practice for securing cloud, endpoints, and data centers.  

“Encouraging customers to adopt a Zero Trust strategy to secure their cloud environments is absolutely the right thing,” said Nandakumara. “We all acknowledge that within a Zero Trust strategy, one of the essential tactics is microsegmentation.

Kannan agreed, addressing one of the most important benefits of microsegmentation, also called Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS), with Illumio: complete, end-to-end visibility across the entire hybrid attack surface.  

“Imagine an organization whose application footprint has just expanded,” he said. “At that scale, teams really need visibility into the application footprint. It’s critical to be able to look into the networks themselves and not just monitor IPs while making assumptions.”

According to Nandakumara, the more you segment the network with ZTS, the more communication takes place and the better visibility becomes. This in turn improves performance for tools and the network as a whole.  

“That's the power of Illumio as a microsegmentation solution,” he noted.  

3. Robust and cost-effective cloud security

Today’s economic climate requires organizations in every industry and size to look at their spending more carefully. Unfortunately, this can oftentimes cause an oversized impact on IT and security budgets.  

“Organizations’ budgets are getting stretched right even now in this macroeconomic environment, and the first thing to be cut is always the IT budget,” Kannon said. “But security and the cloud still remain top priorities.”

Teams are under pressure to deliver on cloud expansion while maintaining security and efficiency. Kannan explained that the joint integration between Illumio and Azure Firewall resulted from customer demand: “To our customers, speed is essential,” he said.

The key to speed is using the right tools. Illumio for Microsoft Azure Firewall easily integrates with your existing ecosystem and allows you to leverage two premium security tools to protect your network perimeter and interior.

“A premium tool like Illumio helps customers scale out and avoid misconfigurations or expensive errors,” Kannan said.

By using the right tools from the start, organizations can ensure their cloud security ROI continues as they scale in the cloud.

Get a quick overview of Illumio for Microsoft Azure Firewall in this video:

Contact us today to learn more about Illumio for Microsoft Azure Firewall.